Wednesday, July 8, 2009

June 28 Tokyo Workshop


RKC Taikei Matsushita and I gave a workshop in Tokyo's Shinjuku district on June 28. Content, over 3.5 hours, covered mobility/flexibility drills, the swing, Turkish get-up, press/push-press/jerk, and the snatch. Jump stretch bands were used for a variety of stretches, mobility and activation drills, and complementary exercises. Two mini-workouts included a timed jerk (or push-press) set and and short snatch pace ladder workout for those competent w. their snatches.



There were 9 students in attendance and kettlebell experience ranged from a month to several years. They came from all over Japan, including one from Okinawa. A significant investment of time and money for many, and I was honored to teach them. To be honest, I was a little nervous teaching another person's students, many of whom had attended workshops with Senior RKC David Whitley, and Ken Black and John Wild Buckley - I was following in the (very large) footsteps of some very accomplished kettlebell teachers. However, many of the students improved their jerks significantly and Taikei was pleased that I introduced them to a variety of new mobility/flexibility drills and training methods. The new students were probably a bit overwhelmed at times, but their skills improved greatly in the short time alloted and they will need time and practice to digest the information. I look forward to hearing about their progress. Overall, I was very pleased with the students and my presentation of the materials. It was my first chance to teach kettlebells in Japanese and I was lucky to have Taikei there to help me out when I couldn't say "IT band", or "hip flexors" in Japanese. I know I was slaughtering the language at points - the highlight being when I said (in Japanese) "Put power in your butt!". I probably said that 10 times and didn't think about it until later. Hopefully Taikei won't put that on YouTube...

It was very nice to see Taikei Matsushita again - two years ago I traveled to Tokyo to visit him prior to my RKC certification. He gave me several pointers that improved the quality of my RKC experience greatly. Together, in addition to doing a lot of farmers walks transporting kettlebells to and from the workshop and working with an RKC candidate, we spent our time talking shop and eating good food. Good food and good company - can't beat that!

5 comments:

Taikei Matsushita said...

Ikeuchi's blog
http://kettlebelldiet.blog.shinobi.jp/Entry/171

Takeuchi's blog
http://blog.livedoor.jp/takenoko32/archives/52388137.html

Ishikawa's blog
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/orangekettlebell/29328731.html

Their impressions on your workshop.

Aaron Friday said...

Stretching one's shoulders with jump stretch bands is pure brilliance.

Nice post.

Boris said...

Thanks Taikei!

Aaron,
Thank you. OVER-apply them and then sift out the things that don't really work. There were many band exercises/drills that were just A LOT more trouble than they were worth for me.

Aaron Friday said...

Yeah, but you can do about 15 stretches in five minutes. Any moron will gravitate to the stretches that really work and stick with those. I'm a moron, and I did it.

Boris said...

I don't know if any moron will find the stretches necessarily... I'm a moron and probably the first two years I owned them, I used them for squats and bench exclusively. Even after I started experimenting with them and had spent a good year using them, trying some of Dick Hartzell's stuff just blew me away...

You're right - one great thing about bands is how quickly you can move into a variety of stretches that really push you.